Samo7

So far this has cost me $7500 and is still on the hoist. This all happened just after the warranty expired at 80k + km's

bestoverall

After 3 weeks of ordeal, I finally got my car back. I ended up buying an engine from a wrecked 2012 A5 with 27000 mile on eBay. The shop that swapped the engine only needed an engine mount on one side to complete the swap because the old one was cracked, not because it's different. He basically used all the parts from the old engine including turbo unit to make the transfer. NO ISSUE WHATSOEVER! I was initially a bit concerned that the engine was from different year and different model, but it turns out the engine is exactly the same.

All in all, it cost me $5k for the engine including the labor and towing and whole lot grief for AUDI.

The question is should I trade in the car now or should I use it for a little more now that I have a relatively new engine?

BTW Never again will I ever buy an Audi. Worst car owing experience ever, and I owned most of luxury brands in the past.

bestoverall

By the way, the shop owner had another A4 with the same engine issue parked outside the garage. He said that Audi uses cheap metal parts for pistons and it wears out sooner than other car maker.

uberwgn

Sorry to hear of all this aggravation and expense. IME, seeing a CARFAX report that shows engine replacement, at any mileage, is not a strong selling point. You might run it for a while and see how it's doing.

snagitseven

Not wishing to minimize the issues related in this thread but for every one of these nasty experiences, there are probably several tens of thousands of Audi owners that have never had nor will have an issue of the magnitude detailed here. The mechanic who said Audi uses "cheap metal parts" is talking out of his butt IMO. I've owned 4 Audis and while I've had my share of repairs over the years, I can state that while these cars need more care than your average sedans made for the masses, they are well engineered and built to last (and fun to drive). Peruse some of the vintage model AW forums and you'll see reports of models with well over 150K miles and still running great.

dk1

Did you by any chance find out what actually was the cause of the engine failure? I know you mentioned a bent crankshaft but why would it happen all of a sudden?

bestoverall

On the invoice from the Audi dealer, it states "Diag found metal in oil, engine lost timing, motor is locked up and valve are bent (Audi offered....)".

I bet it's a loose metal part from the piston and cylinder job that was done a couple of years ago for excessive oil consumption, but who knows what the real cause was.

Like I said before, the engine had plenty of engine oil and it wasn't due to lack of oil.

ARK

Assuming you have a 2.0T, it sounds like the lower timing chain tensioner failed, which led to the timing chain skipping, which caused some valves to crash into the piston tops.

The failure of the tensioner is a recurring 2.0T problem. 2.0T engines built sometime in 2013 got a redesigned tensioner.